Five states account 44% of the new COVID-19 infections, including Florida
DORAL, FL – New York, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey together reported 44% of the U.S. new COVID-19 infections in the most recent seven-day period, according to a state health agency data gathered by Johns Hopkins University.
In plain numbers, this data represents nearly 197,500 new cases in comparison with the total U.S. infections during the same week that numbered more than 452,000.
Michigan has been one of the states hardest hit, where the seven-day period average of daily new infections got to 6,719 cases on Sunday, being surpassed only by New York that reported higher case numbers.
Florida’s seven-day period average of daily new infections has exceeded 5,400, which represents an increase of 20% in the past two weeks. This could be possibly due to the busy spring break season that helped spread virus variants, as University of South Florida epidemiologist, Jason Salemi, said to the AP.
He also said his concerns lie in seniors despite the fact that new COVID-19 infections appear to be within younger people. Even so, approximately 1 million more residents ages 65 and older still need to get the vaccine. “We seemingly have the supply,” Salemi said. “Are these people not planning to get vaccinated?.”
The state is now making vaccines available for every Florida resident older than 18 and every day pop-up sites along with permanent sites such as the Miami-Dade North College Campus, in Miami-Dade County, or pharmacies chains such as Publix, Win-Dixie or CVS offer appointment-only or walk-up vaccinations.
Despite all efforts, the rising cases in these five states is leading experts and elected officials to push the federal government to send additional vaccines doses to those states, which is a logical step for some people such as Dr. Elvin H. Geng, a professor in infectious diseases at Washington University.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Geng said “sending extra doses to places where infection numbers are climbing makes sense”, although this perspective can also leave those states with lower numbers with fewer vaccines.
“You wouldn’t want to make those folks wait because they were doing better,” Geng said. “On the other hand, it only makes sense to send vaccines to where the cases are rising.”
But Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California at San Francisco, thinks it is only wise to ship more vaccine doses to places where the virus is, which won’t hurt other states.
Meanwhile, White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients said more than 28 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be delivered to states this week.
Roughly 40% of U.S. adults have received at least one COVID-19 shot until now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Photo: Pixabay.com
Florida as a whole is a tourist based economy so it was going to happen .
Though find it unreal that the Governor never imposed a mask mandate it was rarely enforced even in cities which had t so it was just something which looked good on paper though would have gone further with the Governors mandate because Mayors had state backing .
My sisters live in California and even with their Governors mask mandate countless do not wear it but again rarely if ever enforced as police do not want to be bothered with it.
Miami has the highest compliance with wearing mask in the state but rare are those who wear it inside gated communities like when they gather and chat as they get mail .
Hialeah also left a lot to be desired but rest of Miami is good as far as vast majority wearing masks in stores , etc .
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“We seemingly have the supply,” Salemi said. “Are these people not planning to get vaccinated?.”
NO we do not , find that statement grossly out of touch and plenty are not vaccinated because they simply can not find it , it is often a mess on sites with incorrect info as not updated .
Many agencies are terrible at contacting people and the supply is as of today seriously limited so taken back when anyone says ” We seemingly have the supply ”.